


Decisions

by RadAceFriend



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste, Hawk moth is defeated, I just wrote the summary and realised it sounds ominous but people are happy I promise, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Is Over Adrien Agreste, Marinette sits at the back but she has friends there so she's okay, Nooroo just deserves to be happy, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post-Episode: s03 Caméléon | Chameleon, ml salt, ml season 3 au, some detective work that I mostly gloss over, there is a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadAceFriend/pseuds/RadAceFriend
Summary: Marinette does some thinking and her decisions have certain effects.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Juleka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Master Fu, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 10
Kudos: 514





	Decisions

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting in two years and the first time for this fandom and I was never entirely sure about tagging to start with so if you think there's something wrong with the way I've tagged this please just tell me.

Marinette sits at the back of the class and thinks about the situation for a month before coming to a decision. Then she sits there another month while agonising over whether it's the right decision.

Nathaniel turns around to talk to her when everyone else is engrossed in Lila. Juleka nods to her and they text back and forth. Nino gives her thin smiles from where he sits, afraid of what Alya might say if he did anything else.

The others do nothing. They listen to Lila, block out everything else because they don't want to hear it. They allow themselves to believe that Marinette would hate someone so intensely for something like jealously.

Adrien looks at her sometimes when Lila starts spinning something new. It's a look that tells her to stay quiet and passive like there's nothing wrong at all. He doesn't talk to her, do anything to indicate he cares about her.

One of the first things Marinette realises when she starts thinking is that he never really has shown that he cares for his friends in some way. Not for anyone apart from Chloe. He's cancelled on hangouts with Nino and blamed his father, or work, or extra lessons, but Marinette has the extracurriculars of everyone in the class and those excuses never turn up on his schedule with any kind of regularity like Natalie would timetable for him. He's scolded her for being angry with Chloe like his friend making his other friends cry for her own amusement was perfectly fine.

It feels like it always had to be someone else reaching out to him for him to try and make a proper effort. Marinette can't think of a single time when he said he had free time and would they like to go anywhere.

She still has friends in the class, despite Lila's promise. Nathaniel and Juleka are her friends, Nino wants to be.

Adrien, she realises, is not.

She stands by her decision. Photos are removed from the wall unless they're of him with friends. Gifts she'd made for him she puts online to sell. It's more difficult than that to just let go of a long-term crush, but she does let go.

The other, more important decision is when she looks at her funds after those sales and realises that what she makes is still worth money.

She received payment from Jagged Stone for the album cover and glasses she made for him. She's won prize money in competitions. She helps out in the bakery and is paid minimum wage, more when she takes care of deliveries. She has a commission page online that allows her to fund her designs.

She makes a lot of things for her classmates.

She has not received compensation for many of them.

It's one thing to fix someone's button or seam at lunchtime. It's another thing entirely to spend hours designing something, then finding and buying materials, then spending hours more making said thing.

It's not even gifts most of the time, because a gift is not the same thing. Her classmates ask things of her, take those things and say thank you, and don't consider the fact that the yards of fabric she buys costs money that she is not compensated for.

She voices this to Nathaniel one day, the two of them quiet to avoid attention. "It's more than just materials though." He tells her. "Your time is valuable too."

It makes her sit up and think. Her time _is_ valuable. And she doesn't have nearly as much to spare as everyone seems to think she does. Between school, homework, the bakery, babysitting for Manon, doing commissions, her duties as class president; she's already overworked before throwing her duties as Ladybug on top of that.

But her classmates have never even given her so much as a snack or pocket change for her time. Alya has dumped her sisters on her without warning or compensation, and Marinette is starting to wonder if Alya pocketed payment from her parents without thinking to even consider whether it was the right thing to do.

Marinette thinks about it, and comes to her decision.

When Alya stands in front of her the next week it's the politest she's been to Marinette in months. She wants a summer dress in orange and white.

Marinette looks up at her, nods, and tells her to make an order through her commissions page.

Alya's voice breaks through the noise of the class' conversations to make everyone listen. "What do you mean an order?"

"It means that I'd like to be compensated for the materials and time I'm spending on your request. My time is worth something Alya."

"You've never asked for payment before!"

In front of Marinette, Nathaniel snorts. "Everyone's in favour of paying artists until it's time to actually pay an artist."

Nathaniel has a commissions page too. Marinette and Marc have insisted that his prices are fair, a bargain considering the time it takes him. He's had to deal with far too many people insist he charges too much. Marinette at least can get away with excuses of material costs, Nathaniel uses a second hand drawing tablet when he's at home.

Alya is well on her way to being furious. Lila says that she'll get one of her 'famous friends' to consider making Alya's dress, free of charge of course. Alya hisses to Marinette that this is how a real friend acts before practically stomping back to the front of the classroom. Marinette prepares herself for a story about how Lila's friend would have loved to make a dress for Alya but they've been so swamped with work that they just didn't have the time. She wonders if Alya will come to her again after that or just try to find something at a department store.

Adrien finds her after class, his disapproving face on. He tells her that she's being unreasonable and can surely make Alya a dress.

"My time is valuable Adrien." She tells him. "It takes hours to make something to a standard, and I don't have that much time available. Faric is expensive too; I can't afford to pay for all that out of my own pocket."

He seems honestly confused. "Fabric isn't that expensive."

Marinette looks at this boy and reminds herself that he is rich, that he is the son of a famous fashion name and likely grew up surrounded by fine silks and cottons that would cost more for a few yards than she might sell one of her own pieces for. She wonders if he's ever really had a concept of what it's like to have to save up for something or if everything he could want manages to fit nicely into his allowance. She thinks of her first sewing machine that she found in a charity shop and did a single stitch size and couldn't reverse, she thinks of Nathaniel saving up for almost a year for his tablet and being so careful with what nibs he uses with it, of Marc proudly saying that he'd worked enough to afford a writing programme on his computer at home, Luka and Juleka gently taking care of their instruments because a new one was expensive.

"It is to me." She tells him before she leaves him in the corridor.

When Kim asks for a banner for some sports event she tells him to order through her commissions page. She tells him that even a single banner will take her hours to make and she doesn't have the time.

Alya accuses her of being jealous of Lila for her experiences, her friendships with the rich and famous. Marinette wonders if she should remind Alya of her work for celebrities or the fact that Rose emails back and forth with Prince Ali. She says nothing. Alya wouldn't listen anyway.

Marinette resigns as class president. She ran for her friends but now all she thinks of it is how overworked it had made her to try and make everyone happy. Rose has her cushions in class, Nino has his headphones in the library, the class has had school trips and talks about everything interesting that Marinette could relate to the curriculum.

The class elects Lila who smiles, thanks them, and delegates her duties to anyone but herself.

Marinette thinks of exams coming up in the summer and how she can't afford to miss one due to an akuma. She talks to Master Fu and the police and they set up a number of security cameras pointed towards the sky in places that analysts have marked as akuma-dense regions. Eventually they'll be able to track the butterflies back to Hawk Moth's lair.

Kitty Section drifts apart and Juleka and Luka book a room in the school to record a song away from the sounds of water and people on the boat. They put it on music stores and spread information online and Marinette practically throws a party when they report that they've sold copies of their music and the reviews they received are good.

Marc and Nathaniel start talking about original characters rather than ones based on Paris' superheroes. They discuss traits and relationships and design choices, colour schemes and backstories and Marinette can't wait to see the results.

In early May the police tell Ladybug that they've tracked back akuma flight patterns and want her input. She and Chat Noir work with a team of analysts to draw dotted lines and arcs detailing the possible flight paths of akuma butterflies until they're left with three possible buildings. One is a department store. One is a preschool. One is the Agreste mansion.

Chat Noir denies the results of months of research. He leaves after shouting that they're wrong. Ladybug stares after him for a moment before telling the police she'll look into each location and get back to them. She remembers her suspicions surrounding Gabriel Agreste and why he had the Miraculous Book. Marinette begs the Fox Miraculous from Fu for a few days and waves an illusion to make herself invisible. She circles the mansion, finding the out of place butterfly window round the back, a hole in the middle, small and close to the ground. She settles into a comfortable crouch and watches it. Hawk Moth has been active recently, possibly growing more desperate. Marinette has completed her homework for this weekend, she can afford to wait for an akuma and watch the window.

Saturday afternoon has an invisible fox watching a black butterfly making a determined flight out of the window at the Agreste mansion. She films it, shows it to Master Fu, shows it to Chat Noir, who still doesn't want to believe. She sends the video off to the police, telling them she'll see what she can do. Fu tells her to act to avoid dragging this on for longer.

Saturday night has a ladybug-fox sneaking into a house through a strange window, making her find the collection of gently glowing butterflies and a kwami so relieved to see a saviour that she thinks he might cry.

Nooroo tells her that the peacock pin is in the safe upstairs but that his master keeps the broach with him at all times. The hero smiles, strokes a finger gently over Nooroo's head and tells him that foxes have light fingers, she won't get caught.

The lift, the hero thinks, is too much. She thinks a hidden staircase would be more efficient, although certainly less dramatic. She finds herself in Gabriel Agreste's office, so dark she would be unable to see without a fox's eyes.

Behind the painting the safe is locked. She separates Tikki from Trixx and Tikki phases through, unlocking the door the reveal the Book and a Miraculous. The fox sweeps both up, tucking the pin into a pocket as she heads for the rest of the house.

Outside the office she stops. She does not know where Gabriel Agreste sleeps and she doesn't have the time or luck to risk opening every door. Tikki suggests using her current fox nose so she follows the scent of a supervillain as he walked through his home until she stops at a door. She cracks it open and there is a bed, the man himself under the covers and lightly snoring. On the table next to him is a broach, appearing dull but thrumming with power. On silent feet the fox steps forward, hand slowly inching for her goal. Gabriel shifts in his sleep as his enemy steals from him, nothing but a slip of night in a room full of shadows. The fox plucks the broach from the bedside table and leaves, the door shutting with barely a sound behind her.

The hero returns to the hidden floor where Nooroo is waiting. He launches himself at her, hugging her neck as best he can with his tiny arms and large head, curling up next to Tikki on her shoulder.

The hero leaves. There is no grand battle, no dramatic reveal, just a shadow sneaking in to steal in the dead of night and leaving again.

At Master Fu's, when Nooroo and Duusu tell their story, Marinette and Fu come up with a plan. A few weeks from now a hospital will look at their patient records and realise that a Jane Doe coma patient is in fact Emilie Agreste and will contact her family. With the right care Emilie will heal enough to wake and hold a conversation though she will never fully recover.

Ladybug informs the police that Hawk Moth will be no more.

Master Fu informs Chat Noir and returns with a silver ring and a black cat kwami.

Fu officially names Marinette as the next Guardian of the Miraculous Box.

Time passes.

Marinette graduates school and leaves her classmates behind, staying in contact with her friends. She stopped caring about what Lila was saying when she decided that the people listening to her were not her friends. She sends some emails to celebrities through official channels with a link to the many videos Alya has posted to the Ladyblog, frantic for content after Ladybug released a statement through the police that all Miraculous holders in Paris were officially retired, including every hero or villain. Soon Lila has a lawsuit filed against her for defamation and Alya has a warning for spreading incorrect and potentially harmful information. Alya doesn't understand why, she insists that Lila is telling the truth, that she has to be.

Alya does not deal well with not being right. She blames everyone for her situation but herself.

Adrien keeps his father happy, modelling for the company and becoming its face. He does not touch the designing portion of the company. _Gabriel_ has no successor and no fresh ideas coming out of it. It keeps its place by its reputation and its re-releases of older lines.

Nino mixes music and works gigs. He has two jobs but he likes them both and that, he says, is what matters. He doesn't want or need his name in lights and on everyone's lips, but he has a following online and his music sells enough that he can be justifiably proud.

Juleka and Luka keep making music. Luka is known for the instrumentals that seem to pluck at your heartstrings, Juleka for her clear voice. Their albums are inspirations and when someone comes up to one of them in the street with something to sign they blush slightly and smile for the camera.

Nathaniel and Marc publish a book with more to come. Marinette buys the first editions every time and goes to beg for signatures. She falls in love with their characters and the world their story is set in.

Marinette gets an internship and then a job at a smaller but respectable fashion company. She brings her old clientele from when she was a teenager. Jagged Stone had mentioned her name to people he knew in the same business and her new colleagues remind her that she is fully allowed to feel a sense of pride in her work when she sees it worn by a person for the first time. She grins broadly as her name becomes more well known in the circles of her profession and her reputation rises.

She isn't where she thought she would be when she was younger, but she likes where she is anyway.

Marinette is happy.

She is pleased with the decisions she has made.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of tracking akumas back to their original location comes from @miraculous-content's LadyBugOut AU, only in this case Marinette is working with the police because she does too much on her own as it is.  
> I've decided I like the idea of Marinette finding out Hawk Moth's identity and rather than having a massive fight she breaks in and steals the Miraculous and Gabriel doesn't know who she is so he just has to deal with it. In this case she has the Fox because she needed the illusion when she was camped outside but her using the Mouse is also an option that I love.


End file.
